The last few weeks have felt like several years compressed down, haven’t they?
Everything has been changing so rapidly and, in the collective worry and fear, people have had an opportunity to really show themselves.
By which I am trying to put quite delicately, that when enough people run around like chickens with their heads cut off, the facade drops a bit.
There have been tears and tantrums, more time to expand into and focus on the things we really want to do, the people we want to be and what we want to have (and why so much of what we had was bullshit anyway).
And along the way, plenty of us have let go of beliefs, behaviours, belongings or bodies. I know that I have.
One of the things that is most important to me in working with clients new and old, is that we are a good fit. Most of my clients become friends and we can natter like we’ve known each other for years; part of that is because I know who I am and won’t compromise that or shrink to fit other people (or at least I try not to, I’ve discovered a new layer of this recently). But the other part of it is because who I am and what I do is encourage you to be who you really are, not the professional mask you’ve been hiding behind.
Maybe you think that this is a navel-gazing exercise of the highest order, in which case please feel free to click the cross in the top right corner of your screen and move on with your day. For the rest of you, I’d encourage you to do something similar this weekend, and get clear on just what you’re going to take with you when we eventually leave lockdown, and what can get chucked away for good.
Let me (re)introduce myself.
I’m Leah; I’m the founder of Searching for Serenity and my big focus in this business is to help the smart, stressed out people who care deeply about others, to do their best work and create careers and lives that they love.
My big focuses are stress, burnout and imposter syndrome, but deeper than that it’s about understanding and overcoming the impediments to living and working resiliently. My clients (and I) have or continue to experience issue with; stress, perfectionism, taking on too much responsibility, struggling to ask for what we need or want, feeling insecure or unsure of ourselves.
We are over-givers and under-askers. We care about others and want to have a positive impact, not just for our own gratification, but because we are looking for meaning and to create something better than we started with.
I created this business after going through my own issues of stress and overworking leading to a lack of resilience and burnout, after more than a decade working as a lawyer in private practice.
I had specialised as a mental capacity lawyer and worked with some truly brilliant people involved in what makes the brain work, particularly after traumatic injury or whilst experiencing dementia, so this was the approach I started with when I started looking in to stress and burnout.
I am not a medical professional or counsellor; I call myself a mentor because that’s the closest thing I can find to what I do.
I discuss, suggest, advise, but I never assume that I have all the answers. I have access to a toolkit developed over years and constantly growing from further research and development and I share this with my clients, together with challenging their preconceptions and automatic behaviours.
My approach as a mentor is that same as it was as a lawyer; grounded, sensible, offering solutions that work (even if you don’t necessary like them) and always working together with my clients to achieve their desired outcomes.
It’s a process, not a one-and-done. We are always learning and growing.
I believe in common sense solutions and that often the simplest answer is also the best. However, I am constantly earning and researching; if you have a fear of intellect, education, science or experts, then I am definitively not the person for you.
I love discussion, exploring options, weighing them up, trying them on. I experimented on myself first and never suggest something that I haven’t tried out myself'; I am both Frankenstein and his monster.
I will challenge you and hold myself and my clients to a high standard. We are people who are always looking to be better, work better (smarter, not harder) with more empathy and understanding and more capacity for growth and handling challenge than before.
If you tell you don’t wanna, or that it’s too hard or that you don’t know how to do it, I’m not going to take it, but I’m also not going to force you in to anything. It’s not my job to mush you like a husky tied to a sled, I’m here to help the self-starters, the hard-workers and the high-achievers to work sustainably.
My aim is to learn and grow and take you along with me, without ever losing why I started this business in the first place or how we all got here.
I work with individuals and with businesses to create greater understanding around burnout, imposter syndrome and resilience, to create effective change both on an individual and group level, and to provide solutions that really work.
90% of my work is online (well, 100% right now) because the internet is a brilliant thing that means I can reach the right people at the right time without being limited by geographic location or specific times. I am not part of the online business/laptop lifestyle/freedompreneur crew and if you try to give me a portmanteau title I will probably never speak to you again.
I’ve spent a long time building my business, learning from other people, and shedding what didn’t work for me.
I don’t believe in causing people unnecessary stress, fear or harm, particularly by pretending that I have the one singular answer, by unnecessarily inflating prices, by building in scarcity or lack in order to get a sale. To me, that is unethical, particularly when my focus is on helping people dial down their stress reaction and create resilience. I can’t do that and play you like a puppet for my own purposes.
I have a massive vault for past courses and offer education, solutions and support from as little as £14/month. 18 months ago I slashed the cost of my 1:1 because charging thousands to individuals struggling with systemic issues as much as their own psychological struggle felt inherently wrong to me.
I am transparent about my pricing, I offer discounts to loyal customers and have offer an incredible amount of support for a low cost, because I am in this for the long haul.
I believe in common sense solutions, hard work, iteration upon iteration and progress over perfectionism.
I believe in education, expertise, scientific research alongside intuition and psychology.
Most importantly, I believe in each of us becoming the best version of ourselves, rather than a poor imitation of someone else.
My big reason for doing what I do is because it needs to be done. I’m sick of seeing people struggle in servitude to negativity and fear, and I’m sick of seeing businesses struggle because they have failed to put into practice ‘people first, profits follow’. When you support your staff you support the foundational health of the entire business.
My other big reason? To be able to live life in a way that suits me; I worked myself into the ground for too many years and I’m regaining some balance. As I type this, my cat is snoring behind my, my dog is laid a few feet away and my partner is working in his office directly below me. I’m not hungry or tired or lacking for anything, and that’s exactly how I want my life to be.
Life’s too short to live with lack.
What about you? What are you going to redefine about yourself? Share yours in the comments below, if you’re feeling brave enough!
PS Last night the Resilience Workshop ran for just under 80 minutes and it was one of my favourites so far! The Grit and Resilience Workshop Bundle is a pick and mix formula that allows you to pick up the workshops you want for a low cost, or upgrade to get even more support (including special group trainings unavailable to the public and 1:1 support from me).
It’s all for a low price and you can pick the point that suits you.
Last night’s Resilience Workshop will be available on replay for all purchasers later this morning and you can get started from just £12.50, so go grab your copy of the workshop, workbook and 7 days of 1:1 support here: www.searchingforserenity.co.uk/resilience-workshop